Registration Day at General Conference Session

Story by Shawn Boonstra

It’s registration day at the Dome.

I tried to register yesterday along with the technical staff, but because I am also a delegate, they did not have my badge. I walked away empty-handed and went to a different registration site today, where—ta-dah!—everything went incredibly smoothly.

I always marvel at the immense organizational machine that somehow manages to pull together a business meeting of this magnitude. There are so many moving parts coupled with so many people that you’d expect there to be serious hiccups all throughout the process. There are surprisingly few. Me? I have trouble tracking any more than three or four simultaneous activities. The people who organize this place?

Well, let’s just say I am duly impressed this year—yet again. No, impressed isn’t a strong enough word. Let’s go with dazzled. And trust me, I’m just enough of a natural cynic that I’m not easy to dazzle. The process was amazing. In seconds, I had my delegate badge and directions to my next stop, where I picked up my voting credentials. Nothing took more than a few seconds.

Maybe the TSA should drop by for some pointers.

If things move slowly at all, it’s because the room is full of old friends and colleagues who only get to see each other face-to-face every five years. (Or, in this case, thanks to COVID, it’s been three.)  I’ve been hanging around the church just long enough now that I recognize an awful lot of people. In fact, early this morning, I ran into a friend on the sidewalk as I walked over to the Dome; he was out for a jog. “Do you remember 20 years ago when we met here in St. Louis? A group of us were going out for dinner, and we asked if you wanted to join us. You said, ‘sure, why not?’”

I did remember. (What I don’t remember: did they pay for my meal? Hmmm.) It was a pleasant memory–but it also made me gasp inwardly. Twenty years? Really? That was two decades ago?

Registration day brings another important feature with it: security. Yesterday, I roamed the building freely, getting in some 15,000 steps just exploring the place. Today, I can still roam, but not freely: there are security personnel and checkpoints everywhere, making sure that everything runs smoothly. My security badge now hangs around my neck permanently, because I can’t even report to work without it. (Hmm. If I can’t get in, I can’t work. Something to think about.)

You really, really, really don’t want to forget your badge. This place is absolutely enormous, and the last thing you want is to have to exit the wrong end of the building in the heat and humidity in order to get to the other side—your only option if you’re not appropriately credentialed. (Perhaps there’s a spiritual lesson in there: you really want to be appropriately credentialed when it comes for our ultimate convocation at the Second Coming. That one features weeping and gnashing of teeth on the outside; and there’s no need for that, because the credentials are available to absolutely everybody.)

Let me brag up another really impressive team at GC: the good people at Adventist Review. I’m a little biased, of course, because these days, they provide me with a paycheck. But you should be very impressed with them. This morning, we met as a team for the first time and went over what needs to happen in the coming days. It’s . . . well, breathtaking. They’re going to be putting out a new magazine every single day. Every. Single. Day. You’d be blown away by what they accomplish.

Everything that happens in the Session business meeting? That information ends up flowing through the Adventist Review “war room,” in near real time. There, a hyper-focused body of writers, photographers, and editors turn it into the information you need. A lot of people sitting on the fringes of the Session have rather strong opinions about the business of the church; if you want what actually happened, you’ll want to see what Adventist Review is talking about.

There’s no way you could possibly absorb everything that’s taking place in this enormous venue. They’ll absorb it for you and let you know. If it’s not in print (here in St. Louis), it’s online: articles, news updates, live video feeds. This week, you’ll be the first to hear from the next GC President as Justin Kim sits down to interview him live, mere moments after the name is announced to the world church.

You’re absolutely going to want to see that. Why get the news secondhand when you have a front-row seat?

It’s a little hard to believe this hard-working juggernaut of a team included me. I volunteered for them in 2022, but three years ago I was a volunteer. I could leave whenever I wanted and decline assignments if I felt like it (I didn’t.). This time, I’m fully embedded, making all kinds of rookie mistakes and having to bother people with silly questions about every 10 minutes. I’ll keep you posted on how that’s going throughout the Session. If it all goes well, I’ll still be embedded when the Session concludes 10 days from now.

If that’s the case, I’ll be following them back to Maryland.

Tomorrow is the big kickoff. Your church’s business starts in the afternoon, and I’ll be participating in my first live broadcast at the end of the day. Don’t miss it; we’re going to give you a better view than 90 percent of the people here in the venue are going to have.

This article was first published by the Adventist Review at https://session.adventistreview.org/registration-day/.